Permanence and Transience: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003) and In the Kitchen (2009)

Abstract

It is perhaps something of a surprise that of a wealth of novels of the early twenty-first century that explore the experiences of Asian migrants to London, Monica Ali’s debut Brick Lane was one of the most controversial. Hardly the most obviously subversive British novel about multiculturalism to have been published since the millennium, its immense popularity within the literary mainstream went some way towards its being perceived as an iconic work and, in turn, heightening sensitivities towards its representations of cultural difference. In particular, some British Bangladeshis claimed that the novel portrayed them in a negative light: as uneducated, uncivilised and backward. When Ruby Films decided to adapt Brick Lane for the screen, its production team’s intention to film scenes on the London street from which the novel takes its title provoked protests from some local residents. This, in turn, attracted high-profile voices such as Germaine Greer’s and Salman Rushdie’s to the debates surrounding the novel, and the British media seized upon this as a means to make, yet again, the tired association with the infamous ‘Rushdie affair’.